![\"horizon\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/116\/2015\/10\/horizon.png\")
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Step 1: Buy Diana Butler Bass\u2019 new book\u00a0Grounded: Finding God in the World\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A Spiritual Revolution.<\/em><\/p>\n Step 2: Buy Kleenex.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll be honest: I\u2019m having an unexpectedly emotional reaction to this book. I can\u2019t seem to get more than a handful of pages without my eyes inexplicably leaking. One minute I\u2019m reading this gorgeous and profound prose and then next minute the pages are splattered with tear drops.<\/p>\n There are two possible explanations for this. Either I might need to see a therapist, or Bass\u2019 book really is a spiritual revolution.<\/p>\n Honestly, I think it\u2019s the latter.<\/p>\n Because it\u2019s not a sad and weepy book. It doesn\u2019t pull on emotional heartstrings with cheap schmaltz. It\u2019s just that sometimes the soul responds to deep beauty and deep truth in ways words cannot express but the body, in its unappreciated wisdom, can. Clearly,\u00a0Grounded<\/em>\u00a0touched something deep within me that has long been dormant and buried.<\/p>\n For me, it has been an awakening.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s what makes the book so difficult to review. It\u2019s hard to\u00a0review a book that is so fundamentally undoing me and remaking me. It\u2019s hard to review\u00a0a book that is renewing my soul.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t review a spiritual awakening.<\/p>\n But I can share what it was like to read it.<\/p>\n The book is divided into two parts \u2014 the natural world and the human world, but both are maps for our modern world and our modern spirituality. Each chapter is artfully constructed, evocative, and profoundly insightful. In fact, it can be difficult to finish a chapter in one sitting because Bass, quietly and unobtrusively, invites readers to ponder, to meditate, and to reflect on God, themselves, and the world. I frequently\u00a0had<\/em> to put down the book and allow an insight or an image to fill me, to wash over me, to change me.<\/p>\n But the insights aren\u2019t bombastically presented or hyperbolically argued. Instead, they are whispered.<\/p>\n In her chapter on Sky, Bass invites us to ponder the God found in the heavens and in the sunset not as a\u00a0moment of\u00a0easy, saccharine spirituality, but as moment speaking\u00a0deeply to the heart of our humanity, of our experiences with God. Contrary to what some commentators might suggest, looking to the heavens and finding God \u2014 as primal an urge as it might be \u2014 is no simple feat any more, particularly\u00a0in the modern, scientific world. Bass artfully adjusts our understanding of God in the sky not as God far above the world, but of God at the horizon, \u201cjust beyond what we can see \u2026 God at the edge, the edge of the visible world, the horizon of mystery.\u201d She continues:<\/p>\n When I think of the far-off qualities of God, I no longer think \u201cup\u201d; instead, I consider God beyond the horizon, just beyond the place where the sky meets the ground. The Spirit calls our gaze outward, to lift our eyes to the edge. The spiritual revolution is the shift from the vertical God to God-with-us. Dirt and water are understandable and tangible, icons of earthy sacredness. But we need the sky to remind us that no matter how close God is, God is still the one who hovers at the horizon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In many ways, the book \u2014 particularly the early chapters about the earth and ecology \u2014 was like being given permission to fall in love with what I\u2019ve always loved. It was like renewing my vows with the same excitement as my wedding day but with none of the naivety.<\/p>\n In a way, that\u2019s probably the best way I can describe this book. It\u2019s the work of someone who has often written from a place of necessary\u00a0critical distance, allowing a writer like Bass to\u00a0observe, to assess, and to advise. But in Grounded<\/em>, Bass seems to make\u00a0a turn toward Paul Ricoeur\u2019s \u201csecond naivete,\u201d where beyond the rational criticism, \u201cwe wish to be called again.\u201d Bass\u2019 book offers a stunning path to be called again, not as believers seeking salvation, but as mystics, poets, and humans seeking integration, beauty, and wholeness. In our modern world, we have become so familiar with imprisoning faith in our intellect\u00a0through deconstruction, demythologization, and rational, critical distance that reading Grounded <\/em>offers the needed reminder and invitation to experience again faith, God, and each other. It is such a wise, nuanced book, culling insight from Christian history, modern science, and observation.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s also an urgency to her wisdom and insight. While inviting reflection, it is not a purely contemplative book, where we turn over a piece of the earth or an element of humanity to ponder. Rather, Bass sets her insights against the very real crises and needs of our time, giving us a theological frame for meaningful, faithful, and sustained engagement. After reading her chapter on Water, one has the urge to join the cause to save oceans, rivers, and watersheds not because one is a good liberal or because of one\u2019s politics, but because of how holy the water really is, because how connected my tradition is to the water, because God is in that water.<\/p>\n Before Grounded<\/em>,\u00a0I\u2019d never have thought the riparian zone of a river could be such a profound icon of God. Or that genealogy was a sacred practice. Or that home repair shows revealed\u00a0deep spiritual longings. Ultimately, it\u2019s a book about unity, a book that envisions God beyond the sacred and<\/em> beyond the secular.\u00a0 Bass\u2019 book\u00a0reached into my soul, pulled it out, hung it on the line for fresh air, and then gave it back to me smelling of the earth and the rain and humanity \u2014 holy things, in other words.<\/p>\n I know this isn\u2019t the most traditional book review.<\/p>\n But this isn\u2019t your typical book.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a\u00a0spiritual revolution.<\/p>\n Just remember to bring Kleenex.<\/p>\n Bass\u2019 book will\u00a0available Oct. 6 everywhere books are sold.
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\n(Kleenex is available at your local store.)<\/p>\n